ALEXANDER'S BURIAL
AND THE ADVENTURE OF HIS REMAINS

Alexander
the Great with Macedonian helmet with lambrequin.

It is well
known that Alexander the Great died in Babylon in 323 b.C.. According to
Herodotus, Strabo and Stobaeus the dead were n ot mummified nor cremated there,
but buried enveloped in honey or wax. The same must have happened to the body
of Alexander the Great (Will Durant, Th.Birth). Initially it was to be buried
in Macedonia, but in 321 b.C. it was violently taken from Damascus to Egypt by
Ptolemy I (Pausanias, Arrian, Aelianus). According to the most reliable sources
it was buried in the sacred city of Memphis "in observance of the
Macedonian custom that wanted the dead to be cremated".(Pausanias, Parion
Chronicle, Curtius Rufus)

The view that
the body was transferred directly to Alexandria where it was buried (Diodorus
Siculus) cannot be supported as it was technically unfeasible for the
magnificent mausoleum to be prepared for his burial. There are also other
reasons.

Queen Roxanne
and their infant child "arrived in Macedonia in the same year and were
murdered by Cassander in Amphipolis in 311 b.C. Their remains were
scattered" (Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Justin). Amphipolis was relatively
close to Vergina and it was easy for the remains to be carried to the royal
tombs.

The first
cremation of Alexander's body, which took place in Memphis, is also verified by
- among other things - the fact that according to Professor of Anthropology
A.Bartsiokas, most of the bones of the male skeleton of Tomb II "were dry
when cremated, after the flesh had been decomposed by burial". This means
that in Vergina we, probably, have the reburial of the same king.

Iron helmet from the tomb II different from Macedonian helmet.

Another
important anthropological finding is the fact that according to Professor of
Anthropology N.Xirotiris, "this skeleton was nearly complete; even very small
fragments had been collected". Also "the remaining bone fragments had
been sorted according to size and length and had been arranged anatomically
correctly, when they were embedded in the larnax ". "The remaining
bone fragments had been sorted according to size and length, and had been
arranged anatomically correctly, when they were imbedded in the larnax. In the
top layer the fragments of the scull were found. In the middle layers the small
bones of the postcranial skeleton and in the lowest layer the long bones of the
extremities had been thoroughly layed out diagonally". "It is obvious
that the bones must have been carefully cleaned and any ashes removed".
(Archaiologike Ephimeris 1981)
On the contrary, according to Pr. Xirotiris, the female bones in the
antechamber of the same tomb in comparison to the remains in the main chamber
"were scantier and had been soiled with ashes. No bones could be
completely reconstructed".

In my view,
the logical explanation for this is that these remains were transported and
buried in Vergina from two different places, as in the case of Alexander the
Great and his wife Queen Roxanne. Roxanne's bones, as mentioned above,
"had been scattered", so, naturally, could not have all been
collected.

According to
the evidence drawn, all personal mementoes of Alexander the Great and Roxanne
as well as the field marshal's arms followed at the time of Antigonus Gonatas,
after 274 b.C.; they were placed next to the royal family in the Vergina tombs,
where they were found. Translation of relics of kings who had died in a foreign
land to their homeland was a sacred tradition for ancient Greeks. It would have
been impossible for the bones of Alexander the Great to be an exception to this
rule.

As one can
also conclude, ancient Macedonians "after two unsuccessful attempts, in
321 b.C.", did, finally, manage - as all evidence presented in my book
confirms - to remove Alexander's relics from Memphis (Diodorus Siculus,
Aelinius). This, in my view, happened before they were transported two years
later by Ptolemy I or even later by Ptolemy II to Alexadria (Pausanias) and
replaced with other relics or an effigy of Alexander's that may have been seen
later by Roman emperors.

We use the
word effigy (mummy), because, as mentioned above, Alexander's body was not
mummified but cremated; therefore, the mummy they saw could not possibly have
been a real mummy of the king.

Egypt had
been well known ever since antiquity as a country where they manufactured
incredible effigies (Diodorus Siculus). One can form a view on the issue from
the book by Egyptian archaeologist Abbas Chalaby, which includes extraordinary
effigies of Egyptian kings and princes, as well as from Egyptian museums.

The discovery
in 1887of the so-called "Alexander's Sarcophagus" in Sidon, Lebanon,
perhaps is not an irrelevant finding in view of the adventure of his relics. No
ancient text, of course, has been found that mentions the reinterment of
Alexander the Great's relics from Egypt to Aeges (Vergina). However, Arrian,
Plutarch, Strabo and other historians mention that ancient Greek writers had
written about "the death and burial of Alexander the Great", but all
these writings had been lost, just like Strabo's 7th book about Macedonia.